Lawyer for the Cat, page 15
“How do you know she didn’t?”
“Because she told me she didn’t, and there was nothing wrong with her memory. Nothing at all. She should have taken him to court, but I think she was embarrassed. That was the end of their relationship.”
“Who else knows about this?”
“Her stockbroker, I suppose. Perhaps that lawyer of hers, on Edisto.”
“He’s dead.”
“Then maybe the judge.”
“He hasn’t mentioned it.”
“As I said, she was probably embarrassed. She wouldn’t have wanted a scandal. And I think she felt some guilt about Randall, about not being much of a mother to him. I hope you like the fish. Always her favorite. But my dear, you seem troubled. Perhaps I’ve told you more than you wanted to know.”
He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “When you’re as old as I am,” he says, “you’ll understand that everyone has a secret history. The woman I knew, when I spent those summers on Edisto, was so charming, so witty, with such a wide-ranging intelligence, enormously open-minded. But in the end she was essentially alone, an unhappy old woman … living with her cat and her regrets.”
“She had Gail, the caretaker.”
“Gail can run a tractor, but she couldn’t have been much of a soul mate for someone like Lila.”
“She’s very good with Beatrice.”
“Lila read to that cat every day. I know it seems ridiculous, but I saw it myself, the last time I visited—Beatrice in her lap, purring away as Lila read to her. Theirs was a rare companionship, creatures of different species, but with similar sensitivities.”
“What about Katherine Harleston? The librarian.”
“I met her only once. My impression was that Lila did more for Katherine than Katherine did for Lila. A lopsided friendship.”
“But Lila obviously trusted her.”
“I know this will sound preposterous, but it’s another example of Lila’s desire to control. She never liked Katherine’s husband.… I’ve forgotten his name.”
“Hugh.”
“Yes. Never met him, but I know that Lila advised her to leave him. Perhaps if you choose Katherine, she will.”
We’re silent as we finish the main course, watching the human parade: a woman in fake fur and five-inch heels lugging two huge shopping bags; a grizzled old man, barely moving, back bent, pushing a cart full of empty cans; a twentyish girl in a black T-shirt and tights, arms covered with tattoos, oblivious to the cold.
“I’m afraid I haven’t helped you much,” he says.
“You’ve been very generous with your time. By the way, she left a box full of personal things. Letters, a diary. Someone in the family should have it.”
He smiles. “But we were talking about the cat—”
“I’ll make sure she’s safe and cared for.”
“Perhaps you should take her yourself,” he says.
“I can’t do that.”
“But didn’t she leave open that possibility … not you specifically, of course, but ‘any other suitable person’?”
“I have a law practice. I can’t move to Edisto.” The waiter removes the dinner plates, describes the desserts, but I decline. “It’s so strange. I never met Lila Mackay, but … I have this awful feeling I’m letting her down.”
“My aunt broke many hearts! Even dear Simon, who understood her better than anyone, couldn’t—”
“Simon?”
“Her first love.”
“That must be the one whose letters are in the box. But why would she—”
“She could be quite sentimental, my aunt, even about her failures.… No, of course not, this is my treat.” He pays the bill, helps me with my coat. “We’ll have some coffee, back at my place, and I’ll tell you the story.… What a smashing dress! That red!”
It’s only as we’re stepping outside that I realize he isn’t talking about some stranger in the human parade. He’s talking about me.
Simon
Dr. Freeman makes a pot of coffee, strong. I drink two cups—I shouldn’t, I’ll be up all night—while he talks. The Sphinx lies between us on the sofa. Every now and then Dr. Freeman reaches out to stroke his back, a gesture the cat acknowledges with a blink or a twitch. It’s clear he’s accustomed to long stories.
“I’ll never truly understand what happened between them—Lila and Simon Witowski. I once accused Lila of anti-Semitism, which she denied, of course—you know, the old ‘I have many Jewish friends’ defense—but I think, to give her the benefit of the doubt, it was more a matter of class. If that’s more forgivable. In any event, his father was a tailor, Polish-born, I believe. He had a shop in downtown Charleston; that’s how she met him—Simon, I mean. Her father sent her to pick up some trousers he’d left to be hemmed, but she got there half an hour after the shop had closed. She saw this boy inside—a teenager, sweeping. She was determined to pick up the pants, and banged on the door. He opened up—what else could he do? She was a force, my aunt, not to be ignored. Of course, she struck up a conversation. They were both seniors in high school, he at the public school, she at … what’s that girls’ school? Ashley something. Yes, Ashley Hall.
“Simon had a relative here in the city, who owned a bookstore on East Eighty-third. It’s long gone now, but Simon spent several summers working there. That’s how he ended up at City College. And from there he got a job at a small press, also long gone, swallowed up by some conglomerate. Lila was at Vassar by then, and she would come into the city on weekends. He introduced her to his literary friends. I have a photo of them somewhere. He was tall and bony, curly black hair, always a serious expression.… She wasn’t beautiful, but pretty enough in an unself-conscious way, and she had those spirited, dark eyes. She was intellectually … how shall I say it? Immensely curious about everything and everybody. And so vivacious. I’m sure Simon found her irresistible.
“As I said, I’ll never know what really happened between them, whether she was just leading him on or they had a falling-out, but all of a sudden she was engaged to Verner. They married and settled in Charleston. Once—it was probably ten years ago, one of Lila’s last visits here—I asked her what happened. She seemed offended, as if I’d trespassed onto her private territory, but she said Verner understood the way she felt about Edisto, the house at Oak Bluff. When she met him, her parents were planning to sell it; they didn’t have the money to keep it up. He was a shrewd businessman, Verner, not a bad man, but nothing like Lila in temperament. A man of facts and figures. Very quiet, almost brooding. And Lila so lively! I suppose that’s what attracted him in the beginning, but it wasn’t a happy marriage. As the years went by, Lila spent more and more time at Oak Bluff.
“I was always rather mystified by her obsession with the place. So difficult to maintain, that big old house, practically impossible to keep up, even with plenty of money! As she grew older I tried to convince her to sell it, buy something more practical in Charleston. But she wouldn’t hear of it. To her it was much more than just real estate. She was connected to it—to the whole island, really—in a way that was almost … dare I say, spiritual. She would talk rapturously about the ocean, the river, the creek, the tides. She was an amateur naturalist, knew the names and habits of every bird. And then there was the human history, which she knew so well. She read extensively, all the available texts, but she also collected oral histories, the stories of the old-timers—black and white. She was sentimental about the place, but realistic about its history.
“But back to Simon. His father the tailor was in bad health, closed the shop. His mother begged him to come home, so Simon left New York and opened a bookstore on King Street. It was successful for many years.… . What was it called? The Book Nook. Yes, that’s it. You remember it?”
“Of course,” I say. “It’s been closed for years.”
“Then you must remember him.… What energy he had; it was infectious. I first went there when I was about eight, I think. It was such a pleasure, that shop. His made his customers feel as if they were his special guests. The place was alive with his enthusiasm. He had an old sofa and a couple of easy chairs. And cats! There was always a cat, sometimes more than one. If you wanted to be left alone to browse the shelves, fine. If you wanted suggestions, he’d give them.”
“And I remember his cats.”
“Simon lived and breathed books. He knew a great many writers from his New York days, and he lured them to Charleston for readings. The place was packed then, all the chairs taken, standing room only!”
“I went to some of those readings, when I had time,” I say.
“But he wasn’t much of a businessman. Little by little the debts caught up with him and he had to close. But I’m digressing.… You’re interested in his relationship with Lila, of course. I can only tell you what I suspect: that they remained lovers, though she never confessed to it in so many words. I often wondered why, after Verner died, she didn’t marry Simon. But by then they were in their sixties, and my aunt … How shall I say this? If she had a fatal flaw, it was hubris. She couldn’t admit that she’d made the wrong choice. But I’m being judgmental. We may try, but do we ever truly understand the inner lives of those we love?
“No more coffee? Perhaps some cognac? What I’m trying to say—you see, I’m a poet, but as inarticulate as anyone, really, about these matters—is that to love another is the most noble of human endeavors, and the most difficult.… To do it well: a rare thing. It must begin with understanding, with empathy, and proceed with great patience to acceptance. A rare thing, indeed.
“I sent Simon a copy of my fourth book, because I’d borrowed from their story, his and Lila’s. It was just the one poem, but I thought it only right to share it with him. He thanked me, but I felt I’d somehow offended him, appropriated his life, his emotions. We writers do that, you know, almost without thinking. Of course, he never discussed any of this with me—we were just acquaintances. Almost everything I knew about him came through Lila, or my mother. He wrote a polite, cursory note thanking me for the book. That was many years ago, and we didn’t correspond afterward, or see each other again. And Lila, in those last years, never mentioned him. But how strange, now, that Simon should come alive for me again! And you.
“Here you are … yesterday only a name to me, today—shall I presume to say—a friend? Lila would like this so much, that we’ve become friends!”
Going to the Dogs
He’s movie-star handsome, this CNN reporter, Brian Hancock, as if he might not really be a reporter, but playing the part of one. Strong-jawed, suspiciously tan for this time of year. He looks familiar; maybe I’ve seen him on TV. “This shouldn’t take too long. We’ll get right to it,” he says. The cameraman’s right behind him. “I thought, since you didn’t bring the cat, we’d do this in the park. We can work in some dog shots.”
I hate cameras. Some girls just aren’t photogenic, my mother used to say when I’d bring home the sample photos from school, but you could at least try to smile. She’d never pay for an 8-by-10, and only once or twice did she purchase the smaller ones, for my grandparents. In my elementary school yearbooks my face was entirely forgettable. In my high school senior photos—why did I have to share a page with the homecoming queen?—my hair looked flat, my eyes dull, and the smile I attempted seemed not my own, but an expression I’d borrowed from someone else. We were supposed to pose with a prop, something that would “express your personality, your interests.” I chose a book. I was a reader, wasn’t I? I grabbed a book off the shelf in my room. When I saw the photo in the yearbook I was horrified. I was holding The Scarlet Letter against my chest.
“Let’s do a couple of shots with those dogs in the background,” Brian Hancock says to the cameraman. The cameraman adjusts my coat collar, brushes a strand of hair away from my cheek. “And I like the briefcase, so let’s make sure you get that in, okay?”
People are starting to crowd around. They’re mostly quiet, respectful of this ritual, but I hear one woman say to another, “She could use a little makeup, doncha think?… I dunno, some kind of lawyer, I guess.”
Brian Hancock’s lead-in is smooth: If you’re one of this country’s approximately fifty million dog owners, or if like forty-six million others you share your home with a cat, we probably don’t have to convince you that animals need love and give back plenty in return. But do they need lawyers? Sarah Baynard is one of Charleston, South Carolina’s premier attorneys. She’s represented accused murderers and handled high-profile divorces, but now she’s expanded her client list to include a schnauzer and a cat. Sarah, what drew you to this new specialty?
I correct him, insist that I don’t really specialize in animal cases, but acknowledge that I have a reputation for taking on tough cases. “I was appointed to represent the schnauzer, Sherman, because the judge felt the dog needed someone to protect his interests,” I explain. “I’m pleased to say he’s now back with his family and thriving, and I’m certain that once I’m finished with my investigation, Beatrice the cat will be in good hands, too.” I talk a little bit about pet trusts. And yes, I say, I find the whole field of animal rights fascinating, and while I’m certainly no expert, I’m learning.
“It went okay, I guess,” I tell Gina when I call her from the airport. “Anything going on?”
“Nothing urgent. Derwood Carter’s requested a final hearing. Natalie’s kind of upset. I guess she thought he was going to settle.”
“Why don’t you start working on a witness list with her. And I need you to do something else, a little detective work. You remember that bookshop on King Street, the Book Nook? The fellow who owned it, Simon Witowski, I don’t know if he’s still alive, but if he is, I want to find him. It’s for the cat case.”
“I’ll work on it. I left the file for the Farrell adoption on your desk. Everything’s ready to go. Ten o’clock Monday morning.”
“Anything else?”
“Just some discovery requests in the Carlisle case and a whiny letter from Richard Schultz, complaining that he gave away too much, that you pressured him into the agreement.”
“That’s baloney. He’s the one who wanted to get it over with.”
“You sound tired.”
“I hate airports. The line for security was horrible.… Would you do me a favor? My battery’s low. Call Delores and remind her that I won’t be home until around seven. I’m going out to Tony’s to pick up Beatrice.”
“He’s evicting her?”
“No, but he’s in California, with his son. It was kind of a last-minute thing.”
“I can’t wait to see it,” says Gina.
“The cat?”
“No, the CNN thing.”
* * *
I’m waiting at the gate in Newark, napping before my flight leaves, when I hear my own voice, and for a second or two I ignore it—I must be dreaming—but it’s insistent, and when I open my eyes I see myself on the TV monitor, in Central Park with Brian Hancock. I’m surprised at how relaxed I seem, but somehow my protestations about not really having a specialty in animal cases, not being an expert—“I’ve only handled these two cases so far”—haven’t made it into the final cut. And the interview ends with something that had caught me off guard. It was an obvious question, one I should have anticipated. I can’t quite hear the words now, but I watch them scroll across the bottom of the screen.
Brian Hancock: You have a pet of your own?
My moment of hesitation has been edited out, so I sound happy about the answer:
Sarah Baynard: I just adopted a dog. She’s a beagle mix. Carmen. We’ll have some adjusting to do, both of us, but that’s what a relationship is all about, isn’t it?
The woman beside me elbows the man sitting next to her: “Ridiculous, isn’t it? She must have run out of clients … so she goes to the dogs!” I turn my head away so she won’t recognize me, pretend to be absorbed in my magazine. She goes on: “Don’t you just hate them—the damn lawyers?”
I text Tony: Hope all is going well there. On my way home. Will pick up Beatrice tonight. Miss you.
He doesn’t text back.
Where’s Beatrice?
The tide’s high, the wind strong from the east, the water lapping over the marsh grass and splashing onto the dirt road in front of my Toyota. The headlights, even on high beam, hardly penetrate the fog. Slow, I tell myself. Slow, and you’ll be fine.
At the edge of Tony’s property the metal gate seems to appear out of nowhere and I hit the brakes, shaken. He told you it would be locked, remember? When I finally get the combination to work and slip the chain off the lock, the wind catches the gate, sends it swinging away from me, screeching on its hinges.
Where’s the car that belongs to his ex-girlfriend? It’s gone. The house is dark. I grope for the key. I can hear the dogs barking on the other side of the door. “Hey, girls, calm down. It’s me.” I find the light switch in the hall. The dogs take turns licking my hands, dancing around me. I almost trip over Carmen. “Okay, okay. Settle down. Where’s Beatrice?” Her carrier’s not in its usual spot on the counter by the telephone.
The dogs follow me back to Tony’s bedroom. “Beatrice?” She’s not on the bed or the easy chair. “Beatrice?” Susie and Sheba bark at the sound of her name. Carmen presses her nose against the back of my knee, whimpers. I reach around, stroke her under her chin. The dogs follow me as I check the back porch, make another round through the bedrooms, the bathroom, even open the closets, just in case. My call to Tony goes to voice mail.
I’m about to dial the sheriff when I see the note on the refrigerator door, sharing a magnet with a photo of Tony’s son. Sally—Beatrice is okay. Call me, I’ll explain. Maureen. Tony’s receptionist hasn’t left a number, and of course the clinic’s closed. I try Tony again, leave another message.
